• In CNN interview, Lebanese president says to Hezbollah: Diplomacy only solution to the conflict with Israel

BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun urged Iran not to interfere in his country in a video interview published on Friday by CNN, also telling the Tehran-backed Hezbollah that diplomacy was the only solution to the conflict with Israel.

“It’s not your country, it’s our country… It’s not your job to interfere into our country,” Aoun told Iran in the interview, adding that “they are using Lebanon as a bargaining chip in their negotiation with the United States. It’s unacceptable.”

“Hezbollah must understand that (there is) no other way but to sit and talk, no other way to solve this problem and to save what’s left except through negotiation and diplomacy,” he added.

Aoun said “the people of Lebanon are paying the price … for the sake” of Iran’s interests, and were “fed up” with war between Israel and Hezbollah — comments reflecting deep divisions along Lebanon’s confessional and political faultlines.

He has pressed for the ​peaceful disarmament of Hezbollah since being ‌elected head of state by parliament last year. ‌Early in the war, he called for face-to-face talks with Israel, further setting him at odds with the group.

Iran has made a Lebanon ceasefire a condition for any peace deal with Washington in ‌the wider regional conflict that began with the US-Israeli attack on Tehran on February 28.

On ⁠Thursday, Hezbollah ⁠rejected a ceasefire plan agreed by Lebanese and Israeli government officials in US-mediated talks in Washington. The deal would be contingent on Hezbollah ceasing fire and its fighters withdrawing from southern Lebanon.

AFP